1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a surgical forceps, and more particularly, to an electrosurgical forceps capable of sealing and cutting tissue.
2. Background of Related Art
A forceps is a plier-like instrument that relies on mechanical action between its jaws to grasp, clamp and constrict vessels or tissue. Electrosurgical forceps utilize both mechanical clamping action and electrical energy to affect hemostasis by heating tissue and blood vessels to coagulate and/or cauterize tissue. Certain surgical procedures require more than simply cauterizing tissue and rely on the unique combination of clamping pressure, precise electrosurgical energy control and gap distance (i.e., distance between opposing jaw members when closed about tissue) to “seal” tissue, vessels and certain vascular bundles.
Typically, once a vessel is sealed, the surgeon has to accurately sever the vessel along the newly formed tissue seal. Accordingly, many vessel sealing instruments have been designed that incorporate a knife or blade member that effectively severs the tissue after forming a tissue seal. Many of such instruments require the surgeon to actuate a first trigger to grasp tissue between the jaw members, e.g., to perform the sealing operation, and then to actuate a second trigger once the tissue seal has been formed, to advance the knife through tissue to sever the newly formed tissue seal.
It would therefore be advantageous to develop an instrument that reduces the number of steps required to grasp, seal, and cut tissue. For example, commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,628,791 to Garrison et al., the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein, discloses a single-action tissue sealer capable of grasping, sealing and cutting tissue in a single action.